Akasha Con (first part of several)
Mar. 27th, 2006 11:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mattlistenerThis last weekend I was at Akasha Con, a pagan workshop gathering in Poughkeepsie, NY. It was my best group-of-classes type workshop experience ever.
I'd gotten the pointer from my beloved friend Rhea many months ago; she'd recently moved to fairly near there, and was extremely enthusiastic at the possibility of Brandi and I coming to visit her for the occasion. I'd filed it in the category of "interesting but probably not do-able due to Brandi's school."
Two weeks ago it briefly looked like Brandi was going to take the time anyway and we'd go together. When she re-decided to stay home and work on school, we agreed that it still made sense for me to go, especially saving hotel cost by staying with Rhea. I got the Friday off, hit the road in an Enterprise rental that morning, and 4-houred it to New Paltz.
Akasha Con was all indoors, had about 20 workshop teachers (only 3-4 at a time on the schedule) and about 160 people attending. All of the teachers were published authors, and many of them do $500+ classes at the Omega institute. Most of them (that I had any exposure to) were both scholarly *and* effective at creating a profound group experience -- a rare enough combo in one person, and to find it in a *majority* presenting (with no duds in the mix that I saw or heard about) is exceptional. I didn't figure out what it was, but Akasha organizer Rhianna has clearly found a way to bring folks of this caliber to an event that must generate a pittance compared to what they're used to.
Akasha Con headlined Magnus McBride and Abbi Spinner, two community elders that I admired most highly from back in the days they facilitated fire circles at Rites of Spring. An indoor fire circle was to be the peak event of the con. Those who've followed prior threads of mine about pagan gatherings will recall that the fire circle has a special attraction for me. It's a setting in which leadership is fluid and anyone can step up to hold the space, sweeten the rhythm, create possibilities with movement or voice. There is huge scope for noticing what needs doing and creating new ways to let the beautiful out.
(I'm going to spread this out rather than try to brain-dump it, since there's other things I'm keen to get started and I'm still catching up on sleep.)
I'd gotten the pointer from my beloved friend Rhea many months ago; she'd recently moved to fairly near there, and was extremely enthusiastic at the possibility of Brandi and I coming to visit her for the occasion. I'd filed it in the category of "interesting but probably not do-able due to Brandi's school."
Two weeks ago it briefly looked like Brandi was going to take the time anyway and we'd go together. When she re-decided to stay home and work on school, we agreed that it still made sense for me to go, especially saving hotel cost by staying with Rhea. I got the Friday off, hit the road in an Enterprise rental that morning, and 4-houred it to New Paltz.
Akasha Con was all indoors, had about 20 workshop teachers (only 3-4 at a time on the schedule) and about 160 people attending. All of the teachers were published authors, and many of them do $500+ classes at the Omega institute. Most of them (that I had any exposure to) were both scholarly *and* effective at creating a profound group experience -- a rare enough combo in one person, and to find it in a *majority* presenting (with no duds in the mix that I saw or heard about) is exceptional. I didn't figure out what it was, but Akasha organizer Rhianna has clearly found a way to bring folks of this caliber to an event that must generate a pittance compared to what they're used to.
Akasha Con headlined Magnus McBride and Abbi Spinner, two community elders that I admired most highly from back in the days they facilitated fire circles at Rites of Spring. An indoor fire circle was to be the peak event of the con. Those who've followed prior threads of mine about pagan gatherings will recall that the fire circle has a special attraction for me. It's a setting in which leadership is fluid and anyone can step up to hold the space, sweeten the rhythm, create possibilities with movement or voice. There is huge scope for noticing what needs doing and creating new ways to let the beautiful out.
(I'm going to spread this out rather than try to brain-dump it, since there's other things I'm keen to get started and I'm still catching up on sleep.)
no subject
Date: 2006-03-28 05:44 pm (UTC)And :-) -- more to come!